


A Ghost I Know Well

by Thunderrrstruck



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Family, Hurt/Comfort, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 21:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13039647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thunderrrstruck/pseuds/Thunderrrstruck
Summary: Sometimes he takes things too far, but no one is there to talk him out of it. Not anymore. [AU: What if Tess Morgan survived the car accident and met E2 Harry? Starts during 2.12, after Harry admits that he betrayed the Team. Multi-chapter]





	A Ghost I Know Well

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a part of my AU in which Tess Morgan did survive, lived through the Reverse Flash's hell, and returned to STAR Labs to help against Zoom. It is inspired by a thing I saw on that tumbling site, and afterwards, this little fic would NOT leave my mind. So I had to write it down. Naturally. Of course.

Harrison knew someone was there – the seal was open, and there was the subtle sound of breathing – but no one spoke. Harry did not bother lifting his head. If anyone had something to say to him, he was not interested. He knew all of Team Flash would love to reprimand him for what he did. Any one of them could be standing on the other side of the glass, sharp words on the ends of their tongues and scowls on their faces, and it would only remind him more of the decision that sentenced his daughter to death. The decision that hooked onto his heart and kept tugging it apart, nudging it closer to the edge of despair.

For the sake of the guilt (what he knew would intensify would he face his visitor), he didn't turn to greet them.

"So. You're really not him."

It was all he could do not to glance up at the sound of a new voice. Although, 'new' was not entirely accurate. It wasn't the female tone that made the alarm bells in his head start ringing, his insides swell up with more grief, or his mind to leap into speedster-paced thinking. It wasn't the words themselves that pushed him deeper into his long list – or rather, ocean – of regrets. Who. Who it mimicked. That nagged at the back of his mind, eating him alive just like the void.

He turned his head left and was rendered speechless at the sight beyond the glass. She had the same long hair, the same gentle eyes, the same way her forehead creased when frustrated. Standing there was the same person he thought he would spend the rest of his life with.

Harry's mind, usually fast, spun like a broken record, stuck on one moment and unable to preform its function properly. A whisper – a quick, disbelieving "Tess" – escaped his lips before he could stop himself.

It couldn't be her.

It was!

She was dead.

"I'm not him," he confirmed, leaning his head back against the hard, cerulean tiles of the cell. Exhaustion was just starting to creep into his voice. He was done supporting everything on his shoulders – this burden of his daughter life or death, this necessary betrayal of the Team a floor above him, the vast sea of penitence which only accumulated with every year that passed. He was sick of it. He wanted out; he wanted Jesse. The thought of embracing her again, in safety, kept him hurling onwards despite the consequences. The only thing –

"Is she mine?"

The burdened silence on the inside of the paneled cell persisted until its occupant could not handle it anymore.

"No." The word projected harshly, quickly, but with the highest degree of truth, at least in Harrison's mind.

"My counterpart's," she corrected herself. But when no answer met her question, she spoke again, "I see the way you look at me, or hardly, I should say. The quick glances. Looking out of the corner of your eyes? I know that look."

"Because you knew my doppelgänger," guessed Harry with a scoff.

"Because I know what I feel," Tess corrected. "Now."

Harry pushed himself up from the blue ground. He persisted evermore, "She's not your daughter," reinforcing his response to he question. He paced to the other side of the cell, which only took a second given its size, and raised a hand to the back of his neck. Something else was the same: her temperament. The way she confronted problems – with her spine straight up-and-down and her words coming out so strong, so forward – reminded Harry too much of Jesse. The very attitude his daughter learned from her mother. His Tess. His. His Earth's.

"Things didn't have to turn out this way."

She was met by an abrupt glare.

"It didn't," he challenged with a hint of question, brows raised, dropping the hand back to his side.

"You didn't have to betray them. They're good people, they're trying to help."

He bit his lip, facing anywhere but her. Somehow, looking away made it easier to allow the emotion building in his chest an exit. Anger burst forth, emphasized with the fragmented words that tumbled into the air. He felt better with his eyes on the blue, like he was not disappointing his long-dead wife. "Zoom has my daughter. My, daughter–" he stressed. A hand shot out and struck the metal sides of the window harder than he intended. His eyes remained on the floor just outside the cell – a stormy grey. Anger... anger had always been the hardest to manage. "You think I had a choice– to choose between her and Barry, the Team? You think there is a choice at all in that? You wouldn't know– nothing, nothing would make me choose differently."

"I believe Barry told you once, that's binary thinking. Life has shades of grey."

He hated that. The choice he was presented with was quite cut-and dry: work with Zoom and eventually gain his daughter back or decline and watch him slaughter her. Or worse. Never in a million years would he take the latter. "I'm not giving up my daughter."

The worst part about the aftermath was that she didn't budge. Not a muscle moved. Not a twitch of the mouth or a quirk of the eyebrows.

She knew how to handle him.

"You don't have any idea," he added, this time steely calm, regret and resentment easily detected. The sheer volume dropped to something low. The resonance in his voice matched the shadows casting over his face. "You're not a parent."


End file.
